12 qliests for autographs must not be over- done lest some vague disaster res lt. By the casual and uninitiated ob- server Professor Erskine might easily be mistaken for an ordinary human. He starrted out, at the age of five, to be a pianist; and, after becoming a thorough musician, he changed his mind quite in the manner of an ordi- nary mortal, and decided to follow a literary career. He still studies mu- sic, however, taking pIano lessons with Ernest Hutchinson, and even gives an occasional recital to a friendly college audience. There is a piano in his study to which he takes recourse in the n1Ïdst of his writing, and he is also known to play for the company at dinner parties, looking like a pudgy and rather mischievous small boy as he sits on his piano stool and renders the classics with surprising virtuosity. His dinner-table conversation-almost as witty and racy as his beloved H elen' -is also delivered with the air of a naughty boy, suddenly grown up, trying to shock his elders. T HE ROOM where Professor Erskine works at Columbia can hardly be considered Olympian. It i:; a cubby-hole of a place, cluttered with books and chairs, and presided over by his secretary, who, when the professor shows any signs of becom- ing conscious of his collegiate deifi- cation, promptly reminds him of a dentist appointment. "Adam and Eve" will be the last of the trilogy of books of this particular genre. What sort of an Adam, what sort of an Eve he is drawing the author refuses to divulge, but he says there is to be no serpent and no God in the story, nor is Eve to be created from Adam's rib. . T HE MEN who contemplated calling Sir Harry Lauder in Lon- don, charges reversed, on the new trans-oceanic telephone would not have been able to get him apparently. j\t any rate it is reported that he was seen recently in Detroit with three Slì.ÏtS of clothes over his arm. Asked where he was going, he replied, "To the Detroit Free Press." Carilloneers W ORD COMES from the Park A venue Baptist Church that the trustees there consider their problems in obtaining carilloneers to play Mr. Rockefeller's bells at an end. The belief that only a person with years of training could properly ring such bells has been dispelled as a myth, we are told, by a young lady. She is Miss Ruth Muzzy Conniston, and the Park Avenue Church borrowed her from the Christian Science Church next door (where she was an organist) when the most recent carilloneer left the coun- try a few weeks ago. Miss Conniston at the time knew nothing of carillons but was willing to try. The big bells (there are fifty of them) are played from an operating board in the tower. There are a row of levers to pull and a row of pedals to step on. The pull on a lever is about fi f ty pounds. They told Miss Conniston that she had thirty days in which to learn to play and introduced her to a practice board in the base- ment. That was in the beginning of December; on N ew Year's Eve she gave her first public rendition and it brought telephone calls of congratula- tion from the neighborhood. These Sundays she plays three times-before and after the morning service and at 7: 45 P.M. when the music is broad- casted. over W]Z. So exhausting is the work that she spends Mondays in bed; but she has proved that a good musician can master the art, even to the most difficult of carillon feats, the ringing of a chord of four bells. . THE NEW YORKER Remembered T HERE ARE those who are won- dering these days what disposition the wIll of the late Joseph J. Man- ning will make of one of the most extensive collections of cigar coupons ever amassed. Mr. Manning, who was one of Wall Street's noted plung- ers so long ago that the present genera- tion scarcely rememrbèrs him, hus- banded the little slips as though tl-)ey were bank notes; but, his secretary declares, never redeemed a single one of them. He died at his home in West Fifty- third Street leaving behind him more than the usual run of stories which cir- culate about the idiosyncrasies of big operators. Frequently, when the mar- ket was dull, he would start off on a vacation only to become so apprehen- sive that he would turn back be- fore he reached his h9liday destina- tl on. When Ín town he would drive to his office each morning with a secretary who had, primarily, two duties. One was to prompt the broker with the significant word from some Shake- spearean quotation. The secretary would say, simply, "Mercy," and 1\lr. 1\1 anning would react with, "The quality of mercy is not strained, etc." The broker eXplained that he thus kept his mind occupied until the market opened. The other duty was to ap- pear on the floor from time to time . .; ','-.þ .' 1t"., " if; ", ' :l ',. ,. , '.: ''-'! '5- i, "Bob) I'm worried about Gladys-she seems almost too maternal for three."